This past Friday, RCSE welcomed a new member to our club and to Rotary International - Ruth Albright! Laura Lane McKinnon reminded all members of the upcoming RCSE August Service Project and August Social. She then turned the floor over to Kim Campbell who introduced our panel of RCSE members who would be presenting on the Rotary Foundation and Paul Harris.
Gordon Matthews, Bruce Montgomery, and Toni Marwitz did an excellent job educating our club on The Rotary Foundation. Each quarter, every member donates $25 to the Annual Fund of The Rotary Foundation through our dues. The annual fund is one of three funds at the foundation. In the annual fund, a contribution is held for three years. During this time, the interest made on the money is used to help offset the administrative costs of running the fund. At the end of the three years, the money is given back to the districts where it is then distributed to clubs for District Grants. The other two funds operated by The Rotary Foundation are the Polio Plus Fund (goes directly to pay for polio programs around the world) and the Permanent Fund where interest generated helps run the foundation. All three members spoke to how they have seen first hand the impact the money has made to various projects here in our community and abroad.
Bill Von Alt then spoke about what it means to be a Paul Harris Fellow. Paul Harris Fellow was started as a way to encourage Rotarians to donate to the Rotary Foundation. Once you have donated $1000, you become a Paul Harris Fellow. For every $1000 after that, you become a Paul Harris Fellow +1, +2, etc. Additionally, for every dollar donated, you get a point. The only thing you can do with points is give them away! When you give away points, you can help a fellow Rotarian achieve Paul Harris Fellow status. For example, if a member has donated $500 to the foundation, another member could donate 500 points which would then qualify the member as a Paul Harris Fellow. Bill shared that the club has 13,000 points and all members combined have 89,000 points. We currently have 32 Paul Harris Fellows and the goal is to be a 100% Paul Harris Fellow club. Bill is implementing a program that will help us reach this goal and will share detailed information in the coming weeks. For further information on the program or The Rotary Foundation, please reach out to your fellow Rotarians!